PACKED SCHOOLS TO LOOK AT CAPPING ENROLLMENT

It could divide a family. It could pit neighbor against neighbor. Or it could send a student to a school across town rather than around the corner.

But at least it would allow students to sit at desks rather than stand in doorways when they attend classes.

This is a procedure called enrollment capping, and it's one of the solutions being considered to help Broward County's crowded schools.

With capping, when a school is reaching its absolute maximum capacity, administrators can allow a specific number of additional students in the door - and no more.

The overflow students would then be bused to the nearest school that can accommodate them. That school, however, could be at capacity, and a student could be directed to yet another alternative school.

Broward County has 26 critically crowded schools, almost all in west Broward. They range from 18 percent to 114 percent over capacity.

There also are 16 schools in the county that are underenrolled by 100 or more seats, and most of those are on the east side.

Most parents want no part of an enrollment cap, and neither do most school principals, said Raymond Fontana, principal of Tequesta Trace Middle School in Weston. That school has 1,926 students now and was built for 1,336.

"When you put a cap on, essentially what you're telling people is, even though you moved into this area, your child may not attend your area school," he said. "It's not fair. I could see where parents would be upset with that."

The enrollment cap works on a first-come, first-served basis. Students are placed on a priority list, based on the date and time they register for their neighborhood school.

For that reason, it is possible that one sibling may go to the neighborhood school, while another would be forced to go elsewhere.

Or one family's child may go to the area school, while the next-door neighbor's child is turned away.

"To me, it seems it would create a lot of hostility and ill feelings," Fontana said. "A school in an area should be for all the children in that area."

Dade County schools, however, use the enrollment cap at eight crowded schools. In doing so, the system has maintained acceptable teacher-to-student ratios, said Henry Fraind, school spokesman.

"It's working OK," he said. "But we have to explain to parents sometimes that we're not going to keep cramming more kids into a class that cannot hold more kids."

Dade schools have used the cap for the past eight years because it is the most effective alternative, school officials said.

The Dade County school system, which has a total enrollment of 323,300 students, is growing by 10,000 to 12,000 students per year.

That is 2,000 to 4,000 new students more per year than Broward schools receive. Broward schools have a total enrollment of 207,345.

Yet the Broward school system is facing a more dire crisis because of the shift in population from Dade to Broward County, because of the shift in population from east to west, and because taxpayers don't want to spend money for new schools.

With the defeat of a penny sales tax in September that would have been used to build schools, Broward school officials are looking for solutions. But for some, setting an enrollment cap is almost unthinkable, even for the principal of Castle Hill Elementary School in Lauderhill - the most crowded school in the county. It was built to handle 596 students and now has about 1,300.

"Capping will not be one of our solutions, because there are no schools to send kids to in our immediate area," Principal Valoria Latson said.

ON SUNDAY: Year-round schools may be the most controversial option being considered to relieve crowding.